Part 1: God is Love — Agape Love

God has been speaking to me about what it means for a Christian to love God, others, even myself. I know there are many excellent books about Christian love, but I am compelled to write these thoughts in the blog. So here they are in 6 parts. Part 1 (this post) is on agape love. 

Love is the centerpiece of the Judeo-Christian faith. In Deuteronomy 6 God tells Israel to “Love the Lord your God with all your heart all your soul and all your strength”. The commands to love God, each other, neighbors, and even our enemies are central in the teaching of Jesus.  Today, faith in Jesus Christ in the culture around me seems to be focused on love to the exclusion of obedience and the recognition of the danger of sin. I get the sense that many people who claim to be Christians are elevating love to be the single, ultimate criteria for the faithful Christian life. If I love others, especially those who look and act like me, then am I living and walking in the Kingdom of God? Well, I suppose it depends on what you mean by love.

(I woke up at 1:45 this morning thinking “what am I doing”. I am boldly and perhaps foolishly entering into one of the most misunderstood and contentious areas of our faith. Does God love universally? Does God love Christians more than nonChristians? Does God love really evil people? Am I called to love evil people? What about Hell? If God sends people there how can He love them? If you are a Calvinist and believe in election, how is this the act of a loving God? What a mess. What am I doing, wading into this? I am not sure. All I know is that Jesus has called me to go deeper into God’s love and to write about the journey. I am sure that my understanding about God’s love will change as the journey unfolds. In the meantime I will try to be honest about those places on this road that I don’t, at least at this point, understand. Frankly, I am fearful — not of the journey, but of misrepresenting God’s Word. But the good news is that there is a lot to know about God’s love including the truth that God is love).

The Bible talks a lot about love. There is that slippery Hebrew word — hesed. It is apparently difficult to translate, but many seem most comfortable with the ‘loving kindness‘ of God as the most accurate meaning. My favorite is ‘loyal love‘, which some translators also use. God is compassionate, faithful, merciful, loyal, and loving. Hesed seems to encompass all of these attributes of God.

In the New Testament two Greek words are used for love: The first is agape (noun), and agapao (verb). The second is philos (noun), and phileo (verb). Most of us are familiar with another Greek word for love — eros — but that word is not used in the New Testament. I will say more about eros in a later post.

To understand what God thinks about love (or more importantly, how He loves us) we need to examine these two words: agape (agapao) and philos (phileo). In a subsquent post I will deal with philos/phileo love.

Agape was not a new word to me. But as I researched the word I found my understanding of God’s love deepening and changing how I looked at God, Jesus, and the people around me.

Here are four familiar passages from the New Testament:

“Dear friends, let us love (agapao) one another, for love (agape) comes from God. Everyone who loves (agapao) has been born of God, and knows God. Whoever does not love (agapao) does not know God, because God is love (agape) . . . This is love (agape): not that we loved (agapao) God, but that He loved (agapao) us and sent His Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. Dear friends, since God so loved (agapao) us, we also ought to love (agapao) one another. No one has ever seen God, but if we love (agapao) one another, God lives in us and His love (agape) is made complete in us. . . God is love (agape). Whoever lives in love (agape) lives in God, and God in him” (1 John 4: 7 – 16 NIV).

“As the Father has loved (agapao) me, so have I loved (agapao) you. Now remain in my love (agape). If you obey my commands, you will remain in my love (agape), just as I have obeyed my Father’s commands and remain in His love (agape). I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete. My command is this: Love (agapao) each other as I have loved (agapao) you” (John 15: 9 – 12 NIV).

“Jesus replied: Love (agapao) the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: Love (agapao) your neighbor as yourself” (Matthew 22: 37 – 39 NIV).

“For God so loved (agapao) the world that He gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life” (John 3: 16 NIV).

So what is this agape/agapao love? The answer to this question is critical to understand our relationship with God the Father, Jesus the Son, the Holy Spirit, the Kingdom of God, and all with whom we come in contact — even to understanding our ultimate purpose in life.

(For the following discussion I am using some ideas, modified by my own understanding of Scripture and prayer, from this document in which the author relies heavily on the Word of God:  http://www.freelygive-n.com/uploads/LovePlus_-_Imbed_Link.pdf).

First of all, God is love — agape love. This means His essential nature is love. This is saying more than ‘God loves’. He does love, but that loving comes out of His Being. God is “I AM” as well as “I DO”. Agape love of God is released through man by the indwelling Holy Spirit – “rivers of living water will flow from within you” refers to the Holy Spirit flowing out of those who are true believers. That Spirit is God Himself, manifesting Himself into the world through us as agape love – we are releasing the Kingdom of God into the kingdom of the world when we agapao the world. The world will know Jesus by our agapao.

Agape or agapao love is a love that values, esteems, respects, and honors another person because of their intrinsic value and worth. Agape love is not based on the other’s behavior, or attributes such as beauty, wealth, possessions, or intelligence. It is not based on their accomplishments or performance; and it is not based on whether they like you or not. Agape/agapao love arises from an act of my will. We will ourselves, even command ourselves, to love the other with agape love. There is no emotion involved in agape love so feelings are not required to manifest agape love. In fact, agape love will never be controlled or dominated by our feelings for the other – either positive or negative. I do not love another with agape love in order to manipulate them for my own gain. I just love them in the agape way!

We see intrinsic worth in the other for many reasons. The greatest is that human beings are made in the image of God. Even if we cannot easily see His image in them, we believe it is there and therefore they have an intrinsic worth to us. The other may be boastful, arrogant, critical, selfish, sloppy, smelly, even all-around annoying. The other person might hate or despise us. We don’t even have to know them. We can love them all with agape love, because agape love has nothing to do with their behavior — it is all about our decision to love them. Agape love is the only reason we can love our enemy.

Also, the other can change. Consider the Apostle Paul. If we were alive while he was Saul, we would be called by God to love him with agape love – and with the help of the Holy Spirit we could do it because our love for him had nothing to do with his behavior. Perhaps our love would touch his heart and be a part of his ultimate transformation into Paul. What about Hitler, Stalin, Jeffrey Dahmer? “God, do I have to agapao them as well?” Isn’t there a line past which I am free to hate? Friends, I am not wise enough to answer that question. All I can say is that I am not aware of that line described in the Bible. Maybe you are. Anyway, it is hard to walk with Jesus. Think about who He had to love — you and me. During the days of my rebellious life, wasn’t I evil? Yes, but God never stopped loving me. Who is He calling me to love right now?

A word about worth. How do we determine the worth of anything? The worth of a thing, a house for example, is what someone is willing to pay for it. How much are people worth to God? We are worth what He was willing to pay for us. Jesus paid the price with His life to set men free. What was the value of His life? Infinite value, of course. God paid an infinite price for us. Did God die for all of us or just some of us? I believe — all. We should see men and women, believers and unbelievers, as God sees them — as having infinite value and worth. You should see yourself the same way, because that is how God sees you. Does this mean that all will be saved? No, all will not be saved. Is this because God has damned some and saved others? Calvinists say “yes”. Peter says that God desires for all to come to salvation: “He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance“(2 Peter 3: 9 NIV). At this point, I believe that God loves all of us. Some of us will accept or receive His love — we will repent and believe — and enter into the Kingdom of God now and for eternity. Others of us will not receive His love which He graciously offers to all — they will not repent or believe — and their eternal fate will be …  well, bad news.

Agape/agapao loves never fails – it never runs out, it never dries up, it never turns on the other. I can rebuke or correct someone I agapao, but this is part of what it means to agapao them. The object of your love has nothing to say about this love. They can reject it, but they are not the cause of it, they cannot earn it, and they cannot turn it off. Isn’t this good news? In fact, this is the heart of The Good News. God is agape love and He has chosen/decided or willed His love for us. It is all His work, not ours. It is not based on our behavior. We cannot earn it and we cannot turn it off. His love has nothing to do with our performance, spiritual maturity, generosity, obedience, or how often we pray, read our bible, and attend church. We can reject His love, but agape love is His decision and His alone. Period. Does God love everyone? As I said above, I believe He does. But not all of us will love Him. I know this — He is love, so if He loves you it is with agape/agapao love. And that is good news.

If we choose to receive God’s agape love — His agapao — then we can enter His rest. But this choice involves work — we must repent and believe, we must be born again. We do not do this alone — repentance is His gift to us, but we must participate. Our repentance cannot earn His love, but it opens the door for His love to fill our hearts.

If love means choosing someone to meet my wants, needs, and desires or if I am living in a relationship primarily to meet theirs, then it is the world’s love — a form of slavery. If I love this way, even if I believe I am fulfilling Jesus’ call to love my neighbor — I am not loving with Kingdom or agape love. To fulfill my ultimate purpose for Christ’s sake — releasing the Kingdom of God into the kingdom of the world — I must agapao the world like God loves me.

Radical love!

What exactly does it look like to love with agape/agapao love? That is the subject of the next post on agape love.